1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information input technique and particularly relates to an information input technique using a computer capable of inputting a location of an object to be examined on a map or a drawing by using a pen-type input device or the like which is capable of digitally recording handwriting.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital input systems include a type which records handwriting and the like in a stylus pen or the like and a type which detects handwriting by using a touch panel.
An operation of a pen-type input device such as a digital pen and a stylus is similar to writing on a paper sheet with a writing material such as a pen in feeling, and the development thereof has thereby become popular in the recent years. The use of such an input device has the following characteristics. The user can easily learn how to use the input device. The input device can be easily carried around and thus can be used anywhere anytime. Moreover, the input device can easily record an attribute to be associated with handwriting, the attribute related to information such as when and who wrote the handwriting. This allows the handwriting to be used as a trail.
In a technical point of view, the input device also has such a characteristic that a character recognition ratio can be improved compared to the case of recognizing handwritten characters by using OCR (Optical Character Recognition), the handwritten characters digitized with a scanner. This is because the input device can detect the order of strokes and pen pressure.
The pen-type input device has been introduced into business usage mainly to reduce a load of work of inputting data into a computer system. In the input work in such usage, data can be inputted mainly by inputting a number, inputting a text such as a name, and selecting a choice from multiple choices by drawing a circular mark or a check mark with a pen. The handwriting of the number, text, and mark written by the user is digitally recorded as a coordinate sequence of movement positions of a pen point, is loaded into a computer system, and is converted into numeric values and characters by use of recognition software.
Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2 listed below and the like can be given as publicly-known technical documents relating to the present invention. These documents give descriptions of a type which observes a character pattern with a pen and records the position thereof (coordinate value) in the pen in a time series or the like, and of a type which reads position coordinates from an origin of a recording sheet and transmits the position coordinates to a PC or the like to store the position coordinates therein.    Patent Document 1: International Patent Application Publication No. WO 2008/141250A2    Patent Document 2: International Patent Application Publication No. WO 2009/143533A2